Green Belt

MiniM.E. has been extremely motivated at Tae Kwon Do and has been so excited to progress to each new belt level. Yesterday was the ceremony where she received her green belt after passing her test last week.

We are so proud of you MiniM.E.! Keep it up!

Great Escape with Friends

Today we went to the Great Escape with friends. It was my first time taking the three of them without Daddy, so I was a little worried about how it would go, but we did fine. At least there was another mom there to help out. Her little guy got sick on the rides, so I'm not sure how much fun he had, but everyone else had a great time.

Boys...

I'm not sure why we have toys for this one. A roll of toilet paper kept him entertained for 20 minutes!

Critter Crawl

Today we went on a critter crawl at Moreau Lake. It was more like a really long hike through some dangerous terrain and possible poison ivy to see a few bugs and to be honest, I'm not sure anyone had a good time. The girls were good sports about it though. Afterward, at least we stayed to play at the beach. I was so tired and frazzled I forgot to take any photos of the good part!

Love These Girls

A Weekend in Montreal

We had a great weekend in Montreal with Gram and Grumpy. We tried airbnb for the first time and had a great experience staying in a condo downtown.

The grown ups appreciated having kitchen space and a washer and dryer while the kids clearly only cared about the pool and the hot tub on the roof!

After settling in we headed to Old Montreal where the kids and Daddy had a dance party in the street.

Here's a view from our condo at night:

Saturday we walked to the shopping and underground city on St. Catherine Street stopping to see interesting sights on the way. 

It was a long walk... and clearly some of us were not very excited.

We found some water and a cute sign to pose in (plus a strawberry smoothie) and that seemed to lighten the mood.

The highlight of the day for the kids was spending the afternoon running and playing in these fountains in the street.

The kids took their first subway ride.

Then we walked back down to the water.

We rode the sky wheel and found some dinner. 

Yesterday we packed up, had brunch at Eggspectation and played one more time in those fun fountains before heading home.

I Love Our Playgroup

When MiniM.E. was a baby and I was a new mom and I hadn't found my mommy-friends and I was overwhelmed and sleep deprived and didn't know what I was doing, I was fortunate enough to find my two fantastic mommy-friends, J. & T. and their daughters. We held "playgroup" for our babies (only one of whom was actually old enough to play when we first started) on Wednesday afternoons and it was was got me through the week- having someplace to go and something to do mid-week.

We have held our (mostly) weekly playgroup faithfully since then and we have grown from three kids to seven in about as many years. All the kids are close and play well together and look forward to seeing each other. We are so lucky to have found such a fantastic playgroup.